Ben Weingarten

Reader. Writer. Thinker. Commentator. Truth Seeker.

Tag: Thomas Friedman

How Leftism Supplanted Judaism and Subverted Israel and Zionism Under ‘Tikkun Olam’ — Social Justice with a Perverse and Baseless Religious Veneer


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Jonathan Neumann has written perhaps the seminal book on how modern Jewry has supplanted its traditional values and principles with Leftism, based on a perverse, sophistic reading of the concept of tikkun olam, “healing the world,” that demands devotion to social justice as the highest good and organizing principle of the Jewish religion.

By way of background, Neumann is a graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He has written for various American, British, and Israeli publications, was the Tikvah Fellow at Commentary magazine, and has served as assistant editor at Jewish Ideas Daily.

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China Chills ‘Rumor Spreaders’ Because It Can’t Handle The Truth of Communist Wreckage

The recent collapse of the Chinese stock market, and the inability of the country’s central planners to “successfully” intervene and stop the slide of prices artificially elevated thanks to their previous intervention is a serious rebuke to the Communist regime.

That is why today the Chinese government is seeking out scapegoats, reportedly arresting around 200 people for “rumor-mongering” or related “violations” in connection with the market selloff and recent Tianjin chemical factory explosion.

This follows a series of other desperate moves:

Since an epic stock boom went bust this summer, China’s government has struggled to contain the crisis, ordering the press to downplay the story, and periodically singling out scapegoats, from hostile foreign forces, to“malicious” short-sellers, to the U.S. Federal Reserve and now, the press.

Notably, concerning this latest round of illiberal and ill-conceived “damage control,” the Chinese authorities forced a financial journalist named Wang Xiaolu to “confess” on Chinese state television to one such supposed violation resulting from a report he published in late July in which he indicated that the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) was contemplating ceasing share price “stabilization” efforts.

And all of this because the Communist Chinese regime cannot handle the truth that it has blown a bubble of epic proportions that like all bubbles must end in liquidation; all of this because the Communist Chinese regime cannot bear to take responsibility for its failed central planning reflected in plunging financial asset prices.

The free flow of information, like the free flow of ideas and capital, is anathema to totalitarian regimes, and indeed dangerous to them.

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21 Thoughts About The Fed, China, Markets and #BlackMonday 2015

First, if we really are entering a global bear market worldwide, this must be said up front:

The Fatal Conceit aside, here are my 2 Bitcoins worth of thoughts in the wake of today’s market convulsions:

1) People ought to stop thinking The Federal Reserve can drop manna from the heavens.

The Fed is not G-d. It is a group of very mortal central planners who control the cost of money. Unfortunately now, they control so much more, in an attempt to manipulate the prices of financial assets and prop up whole industries.

We should pray for a world in which people’s lives do not hinge on transcripts of Fed minutes.

2) The Fed has zero incentive to raise rates and extricate itself from financial markets.

It will always find an excuse (turbulence in the markets, tepid growth, political uncertainty) to follow the path of least resistance (in this case keeping the Fed Funds rate at 0% ad infinitum). What political reason could it possibly have to allow interest rates and prices to normalize?

Peter Schiff agrees:

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Business Isn’t Capitalism

The Left has done an excellent job over the years of portraying Republicans as the “party of business.” 

There is an unfavorable implication to this title in a society in which many – unknowingly viewing life through a Marxian prism – aided by propaganda in academia and the arts, have a negative view of private enterprise as consisting of miserly Scrooges and evil Montgomery Burns’s accumulating vast wealth on the backs of the poor.

Mitt Romney (Center) pictured during his time at Bain & Company in an unfortunate pose by 2012 electorate standards. (Image Source: The Atlantic)

Mitt Romney (center) pictured during his time at Bain & Company in an unfortunate pose by 2012 electorate standards. (Image Source: The Atlantic)

To be for business in their zero-sum worldview is to be for those who have achieved wealth and status, the devils to the poor, meek and downtrodden angels, angels stuck in their position thanks to evil businessmen and an inherently unfair society.

The Left personifies (Soros and facts aside) or at least purportedly supports the underdog, and how can you oppose the underdog?

As with most all disinformation campaigns, this portrayal was based on a kernel, and perhaps even more than a kernel of truth. Republicans historically promoted economic policies such as tariffs that “protected” certain favored businesses, at the expense of consumers who thereby were forced to pay higher prices for goods.

From a cultural perspective, Leftist radicals were against “the man,” from Madison Avenue mad men to the dutiful suburban Ward Cleaver types who upheld the traditional order, and who were decidedly not Leftist radicals.

In more recent times, such lines have blurred to a degree, as politicians have conferred benefits upon shifting industries and constituencies, and in turn received funding and votes from varying blocs as the political winds have shifted (see the financial services industry in 2008 and 2012). Remember, despite there being “fat cat” Republicans like Mitt Romney, the chief venture capitalist in all the land, and overseer of many many Solyndras, is Barack Obama.

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